Weekend Event Planner

These are the 13 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

This weekend around Dallas is absolutely overflowing with big-name singers and local theater. There are no fewer than five concerts featuring well-known singers taking place on either Friday or Saturday, and five local theater companies will debut new productions, including two from Dallas Theater Center. Add in an arts festival, a horror convention, and a 9/11 remembrance concert, and this weekend is stuffed to the gills.

Below are the best ways to spend your precious free time this weekend.

Thursday, September 9

Dallas Theater Center opening productions
Dallas Theater Center is opening its new season with two new productions, Cake Ladies and Tiny Beautiful Things, which will run in repertory at Wyly Theatre. Cake Ladies is a world premiere comedy from playwright-in-residence Jonathan Norton about two women — the titular cake ladies — who come to the aid of their community playhouse when COVID-19 shuts down a production of Angels in America. In Tiny Beautiful Things, Sugar, an online advice columnist, uses her personal experiences to help the real-life readers who pour their hearts out to her. The productions will alternate showings through October 17.

The Firehouse Theatre presents Bright Star Concert Version
Bright Star returns to the Firehouse Theatre in Farmers Branch as a concert production. When literary editor Alice Murphy meets a young soldier just home from World War II, he awakens her longing for the child she once lost. Haunted by their unique connection, Alice sets out on a journey to understand her past — and what she finds has the power to transform both of their lives. The production will run through September 26.

The Classics Theatre Project presents The Imaginary Invalid
The 17th century French dramatist Molière is widely heralded as one of history's greatest comedy writers, and there is no shortage of quick wit, over-the-top characters, physical humor, or zany situations in The Imaginary Invalid. Argan, a miserly hypochondriac, plans for his daughter to marry the son of a doctor to have one nearby at all times and at a discount. She has her own plans to marry another man she truly loves, while her stepmother plans to have her sent to a convent. The entire household gets embroiled in madcap schemes in the three-act comedy, which will run at The Core Theatre in Richardson through September 25.

Shakespeare Dallas presents Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare Dallas will present its outdoor production of Romeo and Juliet, one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. Romeo and Juliet is the iconic tragedy written early in his career by William Shakespeare about two young, star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. Attendees are encouraged to pack a picnic, including beer or wine for those 21 and up, and bring a lawn chair or blanket for seating. The production will run through October 16 at Samuell-Grand Amphitheatre.

Friday, September 10

Deep Ellum Arts Festival
The Deep Ellum Arts Festival, celebrating its 26th anniversary, features over 200 juried fine artists from throughout the nation displaying and selling their original works. It also features entertainment from over 100 “original only” performers on four outdoor concert stages and on several street corners. The event, stretching over six city blocks on Main Street in Deep Ellum, from Malcolm X Boulevard to Exposition Avenue, will run through Sunday.

Texas Frightmare Weekend
The annual Texas Frightmare Weekend hosts celebrity appearances, autograph signings, screenings, exclusive parties, and horror memorabilia vendors from all over the country. Celebrity guests will include Malcolm McDowell, Jackie Earle Haley, Freddie Prinze Jr., Corey Taylor, cast and crew from 1990's Night of the Living Dead, and more. The event will take place through Sunday at Hyatt Regency DFW Airport.

Mainstage Irving - Las Colinas presents Bad Seed
Christine Penmark seems to have it all: a lovely home, a loving husband, and the most perfect daughter in the world. But since childhood, Christine has suffered from a terrible, recurring nightmare. She becomes alarmed when one of her daughter’s classmates drowns mysteriously at a picnic. As the details from the tragic event start to come to light, Christine questions whether her daughter is as innocent as she seems ... and only her father knows the truth about her nightmare. The production will run through September 25 at Irving Arts Center.

Jason Aldean in concert
You can't get any bigger than Jason Aldean in country music. His past six albums, including 2019's 9, have reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country charts, and either No. 1 or No. 2 on the Billboard 200 charts. He's also a three-time winner of Entertainer of the Year at the ACM Awards, and he was given the ACM Dick Clark Artist of the Decade Award at the 2019 ACM Awards. He'll play at Dos Equis Pavilion.

Saturday, September 11

Leon Bridges in concert
There's nothing better than seeing a hometown singer make it big, and Fort Worth native Leon Bridges has been getting bigger every year since his debut album, Coming Home, in 2015. Both Coming Home and his follow-up, Good Thing, were nominated for Best R&B Album at the Grammys, and he won a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance in 2019. Now he's back with his recently-released third album, Gold-Diggers Sound, which he'll play in support of at South Side Ballroom.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra presents September 11 Remembrance Concert
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra will join the nation in reflecting on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the day that changed our lives forever. They will take time to remember those we lost and celebrate the resiliency of the country and the American spirit. Proceeds from the event, taking place at Meyerson Symphony Center, will benefit Carry the Load, a Dallas-based non-profit organization that provides an active way to connect Americans to the sacrifices made daily by our military, veterans, first responders, and their families.

Harry Styles in concert with Jenny Lewis
For the past decade, it's been non-stop success for Harry Styles. For most of that time, he was a member of the biggest boy band of the 21st century, One Direction, notching four No. 1 albums and one No. 2 album in five years. Now as a solo artist, he's had equal success, scoring a No. 1 album with 2017's self-titled album and No. 2 with 2019's Fine Line. He'll play at American Airlines Center with special guest Jenny Lewis.

Pitbull in concert with Iggy Azalea
The rapper Pitbull is one of the hardest working entertainers around, having released 11 albums since his debut in 2004, a nearly unprecedented pace in this day and age in the music business. His latest album was 2019's Libertad 584, and if it weren't for the pandemic, he'd probably have released another album by now. He'll play at Dos Equis Pavilion with special guest Iggy Azalea.

Coppell Arts Council presents Kristen Chenoweth: For the Girls
As part of the Takeoff Arts & Music Festival, the Coppell Arts Council will present Kristin Chenoweth: For the Girls, a musical revue-style concert which celebrates the music of some iconic female entertainers. Chenoweth is an Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress who's starred in Wicked and You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, among others. Only 400 tickets will be sold for this special concert at Coppell Arts Center.

Harry Styles will play at American Airlines Center on September 11.

Photo by Lillie Eiger

Harry Styles will play at American Airlines Center on September 11.

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Movie Review

Remake of Schwarzenegger classic The Running Man stumbles

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Glen Powell in The Running Man.

For all its cheesy ‘80s greatness, the original version of The Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was a very loose adaptation of the novel by Stephen King. For the new remake, writer/director Edgar Wright has tried to hue much closer to the story laid out in the book, a decision that has both its positive and negative aspects.

Glen Powell takes over for Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, a family man/hothead who can’t seem to hold a job in the dystopian America in which he lives. Desperate to take care of his family, he applies to be on one of the many game shows fed to the masses that promise riches in exchange for humiliation or worse. Thanks to his temper, Ben is chosen for the most popular one of all, The Running Man, in which contestants must survive 30 days while hunters, as well as the general population, track them down.

Given a 12-hour head start, Ben earns money for every day he survives, as well as every hunter he eliminates. Since he only has a relatively small amount of money to use as he pleases, Ben must rely on friendly citizens who are willing to put their own lives on the line to help him. That’s a task made even more difficult as the gamemakers, led by Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), use advanced AI to manipulate footage of Ben to make him seem like a guy for which no one should root.

Co-written by Michael Bacall, the film is shockingly uninteresting, working neither as an exciting action film, a fun quippy comedy, or social commentary. The biggest problem is that Wright seems to have no interest in developing any of his characters, starting with Ben. Our introduction to the protagonist is him trying to get his job back, a situation for which there is little context even after we’re beaten over the head with exposition.

The situation in which Ben finds himself should be easy to make sympathetic, but Wright and Bacall speed through scenes that might have emphasized that aspect in favor of ones that make the story less personal. The filmmakers really want to showcase the supposed antagonistic relationship between Ben and Dan (and the system which Dan represents), but all that effort results in little drama.

Ben has a number of close calls, and while those scenes are full of action and violence, almost every one of them feels emotionally inert, as if there was nothing at stake. It doesn’t help that Wright doesn’t set the scene well, making it unclear how far Ben has traveled or who/what he’s up against. There are times when Ben feels surrounded and others when he can walk freely, weird for a society that’s supposed to be under almost complete surveillance.

Powell has been touted as a movie star in the making for several years following his turn in Top Gun: Maverick, but he does little here to make that label stick. With no consistent co-star thanks to the structure of the story, he’s required to carry the film, and he just doesn’t have the juice that a true movie star is supposed to have. Nobody else is served well by the scattershot film, including normally reliable people like Brolin, Colman Domingo, Michael Cera, and Lee Pace.

The Running Man is a big misfire by Wright and a blow to Powell’s star power. On the surface, it has all the hallmarks of an action thriller with a side of social commentary, but nothing it does or says lands in any meaningful way. Schwarzenegger’s one-liners in the original film may have been goofy and over-the-top, but at least they made the movie memorable, which is way more than can be said of the remake.

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The Running Man opens in theaters on November 14.

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